Regulating the Marketplace of Ideas: Political Rhetoric in Swedish and American National Elections

Abstract

The question addressed in this analysis is one with broad theoretical and comparative implications: how do key political and social institutions, which we call regulatory mechanisms, affect the marketplace of ideas in different polities? First, election and party systems, interest groups, political financing, and the mass media are identified as the most obvious market mechanisms operating to regulate the flow of ideas in democratic societies. Second, this framework is then applied to case studies of party and candidate rhetoric in recent Swedish and American national elections. Although more developed in the United States than in Sweden, both cases reveal a drift toward negative equilibrium in the marketplace, characterized by the decline of party loyalties and voting participation, along with a widespread loss of faith in politicians and political language.